Quotes of the day

posted at 8:01 pm on July 6, 2013 by Allahpundit

The next day, on Monday, General Sisi gave political leaders a 48-hour ultimatum to reach a compromise. A shaken Morsi adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said at the time the president’s team considered it “a military coup.”

Mr. Morsi’s advisers had meetings with Ms. Patterson and her deputy Marc Sievers as well as a phone call with Ms. Rice, the national security adviser. Mr. Morsi’s advisers argued that ousting the president would be “a long term disaster” for Egypt and the Arab world because people would “lose faith in democracy.” They said it would set off an explosion in the streets that they could not control.

Why can’t we get 14 million people into the streets to proclaim that Obama is an idiot like the Egyptians did? Over at ZeroHedge, Jim Quinn posts pictures of the banners in the mass demonstrations. They are inspiring. One read: “Obama you jerk, Muslim Brotherhoods are killing the Egyptians, so how come they can guarantee you the security of Israel. Hey Obama, your deal with the Muslim Brotherhood is unsuccessful. Obama you idiot, Keep in mind that Egypt is not Muslim brotherhoods and if you don’t believe that go and see what’s happening in Tahrir Square now.” Another reads, “Obama, your bitch is our dictator.” A picture of Hillary Clinton read, “Hayzaboon [ogre] go home.” Many banners simply read, “Obama supports terrorism.” Others were too harsh to mention in a family site. Happy 4th of July!

***

I join one such conversation, in a corner coffee parlor, above which an Egyptian flag proudly waves. “The Americans are threatening to cut the aid if our army doesn’t do what they want? Let them,” announced the owner to his customers.

“What’s the American interest to support the Muslim Brotherhood?” I asked. “Look,” explained one distinguished, older gentleman. “The West says one thing and does another. The Americans and Europeans speak so highly for democracy, freedom and human rights, but in the Middle East they support the most autocratic regimes, which object to all these principles.”

***

Islamists at a large pro-Morsi rally Friday afternoon questioned how the U.S. — which claims to stand for the rule of law and free elections — could so quickly abandon Egypt’s first democratically elected president and fail to condemn, or even acknowledge, Wednesday’s military coup.

“The morals of America are not being reflected in their politics toward Egypt,” said Sharif Hegazy, 37, who manages the Cairo office of a U.S. company he preferred not to name. “Because of its past support for [deposed President Hosni] Mubarak, America has always been seen as a veiled enemy. Now they are just waiting to see which side will win. That’s not ethical. The U.S. should support the election.”…

“It’s not only about elections,” said Mohammed Farahat, 27, an advertising account manager. “Hitler was elected too. It bothers me that the U.S. presents itself as a peacemaker, but then they supports a fascist regime like Morsi’s.”

***

Privately, Mr. Obama was frustrated that Mr. Morsi had never reached out to the opposition and thought he should be more inclusive, aides said. When the end came at the hands of Egypt’s powerful military this week, Mr. Obama issued a written statement saying he was “deeply concerned” and urging the generals to restore a democratic government quickly. But he has made no comments about the matter beyond that…

Whatever role the administration is playing behind the scenes, its public reticence has suggested its discomfort with choosing sides. In effect, it has accepted Mr. Morsi’s ouster and is not seeking to restore him, reasoning that in fact it could turn out for the best if the military quickly brought about new elections. The main priority is minimizing violence and repression of dissent.

The Obama administration’s call for an “inclusive” political process in Egypt with a role for the Muslim Brotherhood has been overshadowed by deadly clashes between security forces and supporters of the Islamist group…

The administration has urged the Egyptian military to stop using heavy-handed tactics, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified commenting on private communications. They said the administration is concerned that some in the military may want to provoke the Islamists to violence and provide a rationale for crushing the movement once and for all.

Such a move would fail and probably prompt a shift to al-Qaeda type terrorist tactics by extremists in the Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere, the U.S. officials said.

***

“Egypt is imploding, and Turkey is going south fast. Antagonism between Europe and America is at an all-time high. China is bullying U.S. allies in southeast Asia. And what is Kerry doing? Off tilting at windmills,” he said.

Nathan Brown, a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for National Peace, told TheDC he finds Kerry’s decision to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian peace “baffling.”…

“I think Secretary Kerry would benefit from a sense of perspective,” [Charles Dunne] told TheDC. ”Important as the Arab-Israeli talks are — or potentially are — there are two other far more important crises on the front burner: Egypt and Syria. The collapse of the current Egyptian government….and with it a jump into a political void, while Syria has just notched the 100,000th casualty in its civil war….[Y]ou don’t get a sense of urgency from the Secretary on these two crises.”

***

The White House needs to purge all short or even medium term thoughts of promoting Egypt’s transition to democracy. There aren’t enough “good guys” in Egypt to Americanize or even to Malaysianize the place. Democracy in Egypt right now is an “if we had some eggs we could have some ham and eggs—if we had some ham” kind of dream. Our first goal must be to help prevent Egypt’s descent into starvation, misery, anarchy and despair…

Beyond that, we need a fundamental rethink of our approach to the promotion of democracy abroad. It is neither racist nor orientalist nor any other ugly thing to say that different societies around the world are at different degrees of readiness for the rise of genuine democratic institutions. Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not going to be building modern states anytime soon, much less democratic ones. China seems closer to building a stable and working democracy than Egypt is, and the obstacles facing democracy in China are immense and intimidating…

Which suggests one other potentially disastrous consequence of this week’s coup: The Brotherhood will not go quietly into obscurity, or into jail. Its members and leaders are true believers. In particular, they are true believers in martyrdom. Had they been turned out of office by voters at the end of Mursi’s term, the opportunities for martyrdom would have been limited. Now that they have been removed by force and are being arrested in large numbers, the opportunities are many.

The Middle East analyst Reuel Marc Gerecht told me that the coup has forestalled the Muslim Brotherhood’s “self-immolation through the ballot box.”

Washington has spent six decades getting Egypt wrong, ever since the CIA insouciantly joined the coup against Farouk under the contemptuous name “Operation Fat F***er.” We sank billions into Mubarak’s Swiss bank accounts, and got nothing in return other than Mohammed Atta flying through the office window. Even in a multicultural age, liberal Americans casually assume that “developing countries” want to develop into something like a Western democracy. But Egypt only goes backwards. Princess Fawzia is best remembered in the Middle East as, briefly, the first consort of the late shah of Iran, whom she left in 1946 because she found Tehran hopelessly dull and provincial after bustling, modern, cosmopolitan Cairo. In our time, the notion of Egypt as “modern” is difficult to comprehend: According to the U.N., 91 percent of its women have undergone female genital mutilation — not because the state mandates it, but because the menfolk insist on it. Over half its citizenry subsists on less than two dollars a day. A rural population so inept it has to import its food, Egyptians live on the land, but can’t live off it…

Blowback

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Yawn…..we never learn, do we? Islam and democracy don’t mix. Thats the fact. A secular dictator friendly to our national interests is way better than a democratic govt. hostile to us, and who fosters terrorist elements. Idjits who sit in their AC cabins in DC will never understand the muslim mind.

The Obama administration’s call for an “inclusive” political process in Egypt with a role for the Muslim Brotherhood has been overshadowed by deadly clashes between security forces and supporters of the Islamist group…

And yet Morsi came to power because he brokered a deal with the Tahrir Square revolutionaries. He basically made a whole bunch of promises to get votes on election day and then, surprise, surprise, surprise, didn’t carry through with ANY OF THEM. They acted like Obama, in other words, where every promise has an expiration date.

If you want democracy then you either go whole hog and Athenian style where EVERYTHING from elections to judging at trials is done via majority vote and there are no judges, no presidents, and only the jury of the public… or you support a republic with stated restrictions on the power of government and that divide up powers amongst several organs of government which are at odds with each other and wary of each other, thus creating tension and accountability between them with the powers they have over each other. There are only a few metastable positions between autocratic rule by a dictator or tyrant, and no accountable organs of government worth speaking of, a democracy and a republic and most of those forms go under the guise of a republic, like Venice did for several decades with oligarchical rule between merchant factions, and all require a knowledge of the power structure and backing of it by the people to run.

Egypt had a constitution where the drafter’s friends lied to remove certain factions of society from the process so that that a small plurality got to draft the constitution. When you put ELECTIONS before STRUCTURE you get CHAOS. If you don’t know what it is you want in the form of government and can’t even figure it out, then it is best not to jump into the chaos without a plan. The MB had a plan and now it is pointed out by the people who they lied to that they were lied to and that the MB constitution and government are a sham for a tyranny. Urged to jump once by Western radical ‘friends’, the people of Egypt went from one tyranny to another. Now they jump again and there is still no idea of what structure they actually want for themselves and a brokering of factions without agreement on power structure and securing the rights of minorities to protest will get you right back to where Egypt has been twice in less than 2 years.

Remember all the help from Google, Labor Unions, and the Left in general screwed over their partners in the streets and got the MB in power. Now that the tools to protest are so easily obtained and used, they do so again WITHOUT the Western help and their once allies are dumbfounded, not understanding that not all such events in the course of man leads to sweetness and light just because you WANT THEM TO. Do remember that Russia went through 2 revolutions in one year and they went from Czar to moderate merchants that couldn’t stop the war involvement to the Reds and the commissar who did stop the war involvement but brought tyranny with them. Because no one knew exactly what to put in place of the old system, the new one made one or two base promises and then acted just like the old regime, save with more brown-nosers in red shirts doing the work of tyranny.

I would suggest the anti-Morsi protesters put together what they think is a constitution with division of powers, accountability and security for minorities, and a methodology of using representative democracy out into the open air and handed out as pamphlets. Getting to Athenian style true democracy takes a level of education and commitment that appears to be restricted to the size of a couple of islands with less than a million people. Egypt doesn’t have that. Thus a republic in form, representative in nature, and accountable in form is required.

If you can’t put down in writing what you want so that everyone can understand it, then going to the streets is asking for trouble and then chaos and tyranny as a result. Once the ball starts rolling you have days, often hours, to state those things… if you don’t and can’t say what you are fighting for in a concrete way, then YOU WILL NOT GET THEM EVER.

Good Morning, Patriots! No one will remember that President Obama supported the Arab Spring if it eventually fails and the region collapses back into the political Dark Ages. If we actively engage these movements with advice, with money, and, when necessary, with military force, then we get a vote in how it all turns out. – Sebastian Junger “Barack Hussein Obama and the Never-Ending “Arab Spring”” My take.

Islamists at a large pro-Morsi rally Friday afternoon questioned how the U.S. — which claims to stand for the rule of law and free elections — could so quickly abandon Egypt’s first democratically elected president and fail to condemn, or even acknowledge, Wednesday’s military coup.

They apparently missed what happened in Benghazi, or failed to understand what it means to have a pResident who is ABSENT and INDIFFERENT, except when it comes to his vacations.

kingsjester on July 7, 2013 at 8:38 AM
While Obama’s DOJ and IRS have been harassing Christian and Conservative Groups alike, Obama has been welcoming those who wish to behead us Infidels, with open arms.

He’s been arming them too. Unintentionally and intentionally. Thanks to his stupid moves in Libya AQ now has SAMS. Way to go Zero!

If you can’t put down in writing what you want so that everyone can understand it, then going to the streets is asking for trouble and then chaos and tyranny as a result. Once the ball starts rolling you have days, often hours, to state those things… if you don’t and can’t say what you are fighting for in a concrete way, then YOU WILL NOT GET THEM EVER.

ajacksonian on July 7, 2013 at 7:34 AM

“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”~Yogi Berra

“We hope and pray that our Republican colleagues will take up the issue, and we can join together, Republicans and Democrats… We are not trying to dictate what the House of Representatives should do, and I believe that if they can come up with a bill, we would be more than eager to negotiate with them. A failure to act is de facto amnesty for 11 million people living in the shadows.” — Senator John McCain of Arizona, speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation

I tested Uniblue a few years ago, just to see how it’d work. It screwed up a video capture card I had, which had a Conexant chipset, the maker of Scrumpdillyishus’ audio chipset (only a coincidence!)…unlike her Vista system, mine was XP, which actually ended up requiring a much more complicated solution than hers did.